Wednesday, April 05, 2017

SHOVE THAT FOOTBALL UP YOUR ASS, LUCY.

Ah, the joys of doing nothing. Republicans must remember them fondly, as they struggle with the difficulties of actually designing real-world bills that have to get past the Senate, and y’know, not hideously offend large numbers of voters.

After years of failing at the grown-up business of passing legislation, small wonder the Democrats would like to let the Republicans have a try at being the adults in the room. In politics, saying "no" is a great deal of fun.

Now the Democrats are investing in "increasingly counterproductive obstructionism," says McArdle, and to her it's just like when the Republicans shut down the government in 2013 -- except the Democrats aren't trying to shut down the government, they're just doing what opposition parties do -- that is, voting against legislation that betrays all their principles. They're saying "heck no," "toddler-like," to the repeal of their biggest single legislative achievement since Medicare.

Also, McArdle complains, the wicked Dems are filibustering Republicans' wingnut nominee for the Supreme Court. Some of my readers with normal memory spans may remember that last year Republicans didn't even allow Merrick Garland's nomination a vote on the Senate floor. There's no record of McArdle calling Republicans toddlers over that -- though in February she did say that "If I were a liberal, I would be filled with the kind of blind, existential rage that... well, that filled conservatives when Democrats passed Obamacare on a straight-line party vote using a parliamentary maneuver." Ha ha, psych, libtards! Sounds like she's in favor of fire-with-fire -- but as longtime readers will know, with McArdle that train only goes one way, and if Democrats has the cheek to filibuster Gorsuch, she then warned, she would be very, very disappointed:

Is the idea that we just won’t nominate anyone to the Supreme Court any more, unless one party happens to hold both the White House and a 60-vote majority in the Senate? It’s one thing to reject nominees individually, on ideological or other grounds. But “only my party gets to select Supreme Court justices” is not really a workable political norm. At least, not if we want a working Supreme Court.

“Only my party gets to select Supreme Court justices” -- that sounds very close to something a Majority Leader has said in living memory. McArdle also talked about what a disgrace it was that Democrats blocked the madman Robert Bork from raving from the high bench, and counseled Democrats "stop, take a careful assessment of their tactical position, and imagine what battles they might need to hoard their ammunition for" -- that is, cave, and lie in a heap waiting for McArdle to pin a gold star on them.

Meanwhile Steve Bannon has been dropped from Mr. 34 Percent's National Security Council -- not too big a deal, as this administration is still full of crooks and crackpots and it isn't as if Bannon has been exiled to Siberia, but a good reminder that pressure from the opposition is neither meaningless nor without effect, And the people who strain their rhetorical muscles trying to convince you it is, well, they do not, despite their passive-aggressive for-your-own-good shtick, have your best interests at heart.